By FRED LUDWIGCalifornian
staff writer
A 21-year-old former teacher’s aide with a terminal illness was sentenced
to probation Thursday in a case over sexual contact with a 14-year-old girl
that started in a hospital.
Jarek Jae Kennedy was sentenced to 200 hours of community service, as
agreed to in a plea bargain on a felony statutory rape count.
The charge can carry up to four years in prison. Kennedy was treated
leniently partly because he suffers from cystic fibrosis, attorneys said.
Jails typically do not have the kind of medical care Kennedy needs, said
defense attorney Kyle Humphrey.
“This is about as severely as you could punish this individual without
meting out a death sentence,” Humphrey said.
Kennedy does not know how much time he has to live, Humphrey said.
The girl said she met Kennedy in July while both were patients at
Memorial Hospital, when he helped the bed-ridden girl with her inhaler,
court files state. She said he made sexual contact with her after she fell
asleep.
Reports state the two later had sex two other times after she was
released from the hospital. The girl said the sex was not forced.
Kennedy had worked at Bakersfield Adult School but was replaced when he
did not report for work, according to the Kern High School District.
Girls under age 18 cannot legally consent to sex, said deputy district
attorney Carla Grabert. She said prosecutors file charges in most cases.
The cases tend to be felonies if the age difference between the defendant
and victim is at least five years, Grabert said.
Victims often are easily manipulated, and offenders can be good at taking
advantage of that, Grabert said. She said girls often know their parents
would disapprove and are reluctant to tell them about the offenders.
In the Kennedy case, the girl later told her mother she had snuck out in
the middle of the night to see Kennedy, court files state.
Kennedy, who is married, had no prior criminal record.
“I know I am wrong for what I did and I am sorry about it,” Kennedy wrote
in a letter to the judge.
